Madeira cake French toast with Crispy Bacon & Banana

I really love bargains! My favourite part of the day to go to the grocery store is at the end of the day, an hour or two before they close. It is the golden hour to buy fresh produce of which the ‘sell by’ date is on that day. Most of the time there is nothing wrong with the products and it can still last a few days in your fridge. This golden hour means half price!

Let’s talk about food wastage

I think it is important for each individual to be frugal where you can, especially when it comes to food. I try not to waste anything. It is a shocking fact that one-third of food gets wasted. So much food wastage and yet there are people starving of hunger.
Buying half-price fresh produce really gets the creative juices flowing, because you need to create a dish with the fresh produce before it needs to be thrown out. This means that sometimes you buy beautiful Enoki mushrooms when you actually planned to make something that does not include mushrooms for dinner. I encourage you to know what’s in your fridge and in your kitchen and make sure you eat it before it needs to be thrown out.

Last week I found a sweet little Madeira cake on the discounted shelf. I simply could not just leave it there staring at me. 🙂

There are a lot of desserts you can make with leftover cake, but I wanted to make something that can be eaten as a meal. Eating cake for breakfast a few times a year is acceptable.
Now, I’m not saying that replacing whole-grain bread with Madeira cake for French toast is equally healthy, but it is damn good. And I think it would be the perfect breakfast to serve your Mama in bed this coming Mother’s Day. If you did not know Mother’s Day is on Sunday, 14 May 2017, now you know. If you are lucky enough to still have a beautiful Mama on our earth, make an effort to show her just how much she means to you.

Make her Madeira cake French toast with crispy bacon, banana and maple syrup. Hug her more than enough and most importantly, tell her you love her.

Cover an oven pan with foil. Put the slices of bacon on the foil in a single layer.

Place the pan in the oven and then turn your oven on the grill setting. Some of the bacon fat will be rendered and turn the streaky bacon into crispy pieces. Be sure to keep an eye on the oven to make sure it does not burn. Remove once brown and crispy.

Cut the Madeira cake into 1-2cm slices.

Beat the eggs in a flat container big enough to fit a piece of bread or two in. Add a splash of milk. If there is not enough egg, just whisk up some more for the rest of the cake slices.

While getting the pan up to medium heat and ready for frying, soak the Madeira cake in the egg mixture. Turn the slices of cake around after a minute of two. If you like your French toast really juicy inside, you can pierce the cake with a fork for maximum absorption.

Once the pan is hot, fry the sliced of cake, turning it after 1 – 2 minutes. Cook both sides until golden brown. Continue until all the slices of cake are cooked.

Assemble your French toast by placing a slice of cake on a plate; add some cut banana and a piece of bacon. Add another slice of cake and top it off with pieces of banana and bacon. At this stage you can drizzle it with maple syrup or honey and add cinnamon.